februari-torens

[februari-torens]

Quilted Portraits No. 1 of Baby, the Impala

17” x 17” cotton fabric (primarily Cherrywood Fabrics)

Like my first portraits (x) and second portraits (x) of Sam and Dean, these quilts use a technique called paper piecing, where you print the pattern on paper and then sew through both the paper and the fabric. This method allows for very precise piecing and tiny, tiny pieces of fabric.

See the finished tote bag here.

I also submitted this for the @spnreversebang 2022! See the accompanying story I Think I’ll Go for a Drive by iamianweareme here.

#fankunst

[februari-torens]

Quilted Portraits No. 2 of Baby, the Impala

17” x 17” cotton fabric (Cherrywood Fabrics), miniature paper piecing, license plate and "Chevrolet" embroidered.

See Baby #1, Sam and Dean #1, and Sam and Dean #2.

#fankunst

[februari-torens]

honestly i don't even remember creating anything for the file tagging system on my laptop, but i was just searching for something in a finder window, and--

#fankunst #hilarisch

[februari-torens]

Can you guys watch him for me? I need to run to the store real quick I’ll be right back

#fankunst

[februari-torens]

Castiel in 14x19, to Sam and Dean: “How could you even think of locking Jack away?”

Castiel in 14x20: “We should put Jack in The Cage.”

#14x19 #14x20 #fankunst #hilarisch

[februari-torens]

he kept asking for pie.

I gave him some pie.

its apple pie.

#fankunst

[februari-torens]

god rewatching Weekend At Bobby's is a fucking trip and a half because it's such a flashing neon sign of a cautionary tale running in both directions this season, and I think I only caught one half of it on my first watch through.

like, there's obviously the very surface level "it's important to check in with your loved ones to make sure they're doing okay" stuff that's running on the Winchesters' end of things, that's pretty obvious and extremely loud in the text itself in that it's pretty literally spelled out (and yelled out) by Bobby.

but there's another layer here, where Bobby's entire story is a warning for Cas. Bobby, like Cas, spends the entire first half of the episode shutting people out and pushing people away, rejecting his neighbor's offer of companionship, insisting he doesn't need Rufus's help, clamming up and not telling the Winchesters how many balls he's got in the air at the moment... until he finally hits a breaking point and melts down from the stress of everything he's trying to juggle. then when he finally asks his friends for help, they immediately come through for him because they love him. Rufus, Jody, Dean, Sam, they all go to bat for Bobby and get the pieces he needs moved into place so he can back Crowley into a corner and gain the upper hand.

and Cas... never does that. Bobby's terrible at asking for support, but Cas is even worse (which is unsurprising because. well. how many millennia of getting brainwashed by the literal doomsday cult that is Heaven? I don't get the impression that Naomi and the archangels were big on synergy or collaborative work, given that the second Cas started screwing things up in S4 they immediately started punishing him and had Uriel babysitting). Bobby hits a breaking point and asks for help, but Cas never does. he just keeps lying, keeps hiding things, keeps working with Crowley and digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole until his friends find out he's been manipulating them and get upset about it, at which point no one is willing to compromise and he's in too deep to get out on his own.

in conclusion: in a season I really don't enjoy much, Weekend at Bobby's is a crazy good episode that really serves as a great setup for the major conflict of the season.

#6x04 #Cas W. #Bobby S.

[februari-torens]

would love to hear more about the “chuck was the one who brainwashed cas and kelly actually” theory, thank you :)

Okay so I'm going to sound like I'm not addressing your question at all at first but just bear with me.

One of the primary reasons that the baby brainwashing incident fascinates me is that Cas's actions are a betrayal of his and Dean's bond on a foundational level. I'm not talking about The Colt or the mixtape (though they're related).

Dean and Cas's relationship as handler and charge was shed and a real, genuine bond bloomed in 4.22, after this exchange:

DEAN Destiny? Don't give me that "holy" crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families -- that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn? CASTIEL What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam. DEAN You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. 

These are the words that convince Cas to rebel. These are the words that dissolve Cas's doubts in doubt, and convince him to follow his convictions instead of act on blind faith. Shortly after this conversation, Cas flies Dean to Chuck, who tells them what they're up to isn't supposed to happen. This becomes a theme of Dean and Cas's relationship.

Together, Dean and Cas do things that aren't supposed to happen—that aren't part of God's plan. They do something Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 4.18. They do something that Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 4.22. They do something that Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 5.22.

Dean and Cas's relationship, at its very core, is built upon the rejection of two things: 1) Destiny and 2) Paradise—and by the end of "The Future", Cas explicitly (in the production draft) embraces destiny and paradise... and that screams Chuck.

This is what Cas says to Kelly right after the devil baby brainwashing at the very end of "The Future". The "Paradise" part doesn't make it to the final cut—just the "future" part... but the Paradise part is implied by the "future" part anyway.

What else happens in "The Future"? Kelly says the line.

It's not supposed to happen this way.

She says the line that Chuck said every time Dean and Cas defied the writing during the first apocalypse by doing something Chuck couldn't or didn't anticipate. Kelly says this after Sam and Dean catch up to Castiel—after Sam and Dean convince Cas to just talk through all of this with them and not jump to the nuclear option of murdering Kelly—to consider an alternative plan where Kelly and Jack's lives are both preserved because Jack is born a regular baby. The moment Cas begins to agree to talk, Kelly says "It's not supposed to happen this way."

Now let's talk about Kelly. Her behavior this entire episode is insane. She begins the episode despairing because giving birth to Jack will kill her. She then tries to kill herself, but Jack won't let her die—and this throws Kelly into a sort of religious fervor—convincing her that Jack is actually good and could revolutionize the world. Her belief in this is so powerful that when Sam and Dean arrive, she immediately rejects the plan they've come up with that will spare her and Jack's lives:

Sam: No, Kelly, if you go with Cass, you die. Your baby dies. Kelly: I go with you, you take away the thing that makes him special.

She sounds nuts. Like. Imagine saying you'd rather you and your baby DIE than have a "normal" baby. Your baby HAS to be a special baby or you'd rather be dead? Uh... ew—and to a point that screams supernatural brainwashing.

Of course—Kelly's actions aren't quite as irrational as they seem because right before Sam and Dean arrived, Kelly was shown something by "Jack". She got Cas to lay his palm on her belly, and "Jack" showed her a vision of the future. After she takes off with Cas in the impala, she says,

When you put your hand on my stomach, I heard him. He spoke to me. He told me that even if it seems scary, if I just went to the gate, if I just followed your plan, that you would make sure he was born.

So even as she's driving herself straight into Cas's plan to kill her and her baby, Kelly believes everything will be fine—because "Jack" showed her the future... and the thing is? She's... not wrong. "Jack" did show her the future. "Jack" showed her a tiny moment that actually does happen at the end of the episode—Cas standing between her and Dagon and saying "You stay away from her".

Why do I keep putting "Jack" in quotes here? Because Jack never displays the ability to see the future after his birth, and yet "Jack" did have this power from the womb... only? Yeah... I'm not so sure. I'm wondering if it was someone else—someone who showed Kelly what they had already written.

I'll also note in 13.01, that Jack doesn't seem to remember... any of this happening—at least not in the same way. In fact, he recalls very little leading up to his birth. The way he describes it, his sole knowledge of the world prior to his birth came from Kelly speaking to him while he was in the womb... but also... not? Because he says he was Kelly?

SAM: How do you speak English? JACK: My mother taught me. SAM: So you talked to her. JACK: I was her. JACK: My mother, she said Castiel, he would keep me safe. She said the world was a dangerous place. That's -- that's why I couldn't be a baby or a child. I... That's why I had to grow up fast. That's why I chose him to be my father. Where is he?

It's all pretty confusing, but something blinks at me here: Jack says Kelly told him Castiel would keep him safe and indicates that he chose Castiel as his father based on Kelly's assessment. However, Kelly told us Jack showed her the future which told her that Castiel would keep Jack safe back in 12.19. These are two contradictory stories. What if a third party sowed both?

Two other little bits:

First:

Kelly: Maybe – maybe everything that I've been through, everything that I still have to go through, is happening for a reason. Maybe it's part of some plan. Castiel: No, it isn't. I used to believe in a plan. I used to believe that I had some mission. But I have been through enough now to know that everyone is just winging it. 

Castiel does a 180 on this by the end of the episode and it screams Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck.

Second:

If you go to the 12.19 production draft (graciously provided to the fandom through @/spnscripthunt) on page 45, you'll see something that never made it to screen—Cas's vision of paradise.

Only—these visions don't seem to come to fruition unlike Kelly's vision of Cas protecting her. The bits with Dean and Castiel's wings don't feel like the future anyway—they... just feel like what Cas wants most desperately at that time—to be a protector and provider who can handle everything on his own—who needs a "win". This is another theme of the episode. Cas stole The Colt in a misguided attempt to protect his family from having to be directly involved in the ruthless murder Cas had determined would be necessary. He didn't believe there was any other choice, and he wanted to spare Sam and Dean the pain of being involved in the dirty work.

Sam: Then – Then why didn't you call us? Cas, we could've helped you. Castiel: I know. I wanted to keep you out of this. I-I was trying to keep you safe. Dean: You're not our babysitter, Cas, okay? That is not your job. And when in our whole lives have we ever been safe?

This probably stings for Cas because he knows they aren't, and he wants them to be—he wants his family to be safe... all without having to discard his conscience by killing Kelly. He wants her to be safe too! The stuff he sees gives him what he wants--Sam and Dean and Kelly happy and safe—Dean thanking him—Cas once more a fully powered angel who doesn't need anybody's help.

But all of this stuff he sees? It's a lie. It's a lie because it never happens, but it's also a lie because destiny is always a lie. Paradise is always a lie. God's plan is just a way to keep them all in line... and Cas is trying to secure paradise for someone who said they'd take the pain and the guilt over someone else's vision of their paradise.

#12x19 #14x20 #e.a. #Cas W. #Dean W. #Jack K. #the spn universe and everything

[februari-torens]

I know you're knee-deep in a rewatch, but when you have time can you point to some of your Cas-Chuck battle royale thoughts?

okay this has been sitting in my inbox since like late January and I am so sorry it's taken me so long, anon. my entire life spent most of February exploding (derogatory) and then March was sort of a long slog of Busy and I'm still very busy but I've decided to finally just make myself take an hour or so to sit down and answer this... SO! sorry and I hope this is worth the wait lol

ANYWAY

I know I have written about this pretty extensively before but, frustratingly, I can't seem to find the post(s) because they didn't get properly entered into my meta tag, so I guess I can't follow the shortcut of linking to my own previous posts for assigned reading to get everybody on the same page RIP. That being said, I do have one good post that I made several years ago— and while I no longer fully agree with all of the mental framework I was carrying about the show when I wrote it, I still stand by the general gist of this post re: Cas as a dichotomy-breaker in a binary world, which I think may be helpful in establishing at least some of the baseline from which my Cas vs Chuck thoughts spring.

But to tackle your question directly, there are a couple of different aspects to this lens of SPN analysis that are fairly intertwined. The first (and imo most interesting) angle is that Cas and Chuck are fighting for control of the narrative. The second, which I'll come to a bit later, is the battle over Dean (which is a crude way of putting it but I can't think of a more apt phrasing at the moment).

To address the first aspect:

Supernatural is a text that is deeply, deeply concerned with the inter-relatedness of author and audience. The most obvious examples of this are the fan-interaction meta episodes, but it goes much deeper than that, down into the very bones of the show. Lots of shows, especially shows with fantasy elements, get into this kind of meta stuff, but Supernatural was in the unique position of being one of the very first shows to be getting audience feedback in the form of fan reactions in pretty much real time (I would highly recommend listening to one of the SPN: Then & Now episodes with Alona Tal as a guest, her commentary on how the WB forum reactions to Jo shaped the direction of Jo's character do a great job of illustrating this).

In short: What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext? And who gives a story meaning? Is the writer? Or you?

Now what does this have to do with Cas and Chuck? To make a long story short, Chuck is the author. He starts out symbolizing the writers collectively, but as the show goes on and his role evolves from prophet to deity, he becomes more directly symbolic of the network, The Powers That Be if you will. He has a specific agenda, and that intertwines with the particular neuroses of his character as a character in some interesting ways. His desire for a specific, winning-formula "epic" story becomes fused with his guilt-and-superiority complexes re: Amara and these two emotional impulses drive damn near everything he does. He relates to Sam because in his mind, he and Sam are the same sort of creature; he is obsessed with Dean because in his mind Dean is an Amara that Chuck can actually control and force into the role he expects him to play.

And Cas... disrupts this. In a very real way, both Dean and Cas have been pushing back against predetermination from the very beginning, not wanting to comply with destiny, but neither of them was actually able to evade the tripwires of Chuck's plot by themselves. It was only by finding each other and giving each other the support they both needed that they're able to circumvent the things Chuck had planned for them. (It's all very The Good Place, really.) We see this in 04.18, 04.22, 05.22 (and, I would argue, plenty of other episodes that are less explicitly obvious unless you're looking for the traps the authorgod is laying out in the narrative) and then Chuck all but looks into the camera and tells the audience this in 15.17.

And I think, up to a certain point, Chuck found this... amusing? Entertaining? I think when it was just a bit of an unexpected plot twist, Chuck was chill about it and just kind of enjoying being caught a little off-guard by the direction his "characters" were taking. Even network executives like surprises if they're profitable enough, you know?

But then Cas did the unthinkable: he tried to usurp Chuck's role. It was all fine when Cas was a character and witness-bearer (read: audience) to the Winchester family drama and Chuck was the unknowable author... but when Cas, in TMWWBK, looked directly into the camera (directly at the audience) and said "let me tell you my story" TO GOD (thus casting himself as the author and God/Chuck as the audience), he unwittingly challenged Chuck's authority as the arbiter of truth in the SPN universe by claiming his right to his own narrative. And from that point on, Cas kinda became Public Enemy #1 for Chuck.

(This, imo, is why so many things end up blowing up in Cas's face from that point onward. Chuck can't control Cas's actions, but he can set up the scenario in such a way that whatever choice Cas makes, Chuck can create some unexpected fucked up ramifications of that choice in order to mess with Cas's head.)

In short, although Cas doesn't realize it, they're essentially fighting for control over who gets to say what this whole grand story means.

And this brings me to my second point: the struggle over Dean.

To be clear, this is not, like, a sex thing. I mean, it's kind of a sex thing, because Cas is canonically in love with Dean and Chuck is. uh. kind of psychosexually obsessed with him? (Thanks for making that crystal-clear, Lillith and also Rob "how much horniness can I put into my gaze while staring up at Jensen" Benedict lmao) So yeah it's maybe a little bit of a sex thing lol but mostly it's a fight over how Dean is defined within the narrative framework of the show. Is Dean a loving man who is free to make his own choices and decide which way he lives his life, or is he an eternal deadly weapon in the hand of whichever nearby authority figure has the strength to bend him to their will?

Chuck's issues with his sister spill out all over his interactions with Dean, and he really, really wants Dean to be basically Amara 2: Now With 200% More Obedience To Chuck's Will. Cas, in contrast, loves Dean for himself and wants Dean to have the freedom to be himself, unencumbered by the burdens of destiny and cosmic upheaval (a desire which he sometimes chases to disastrous outcomes).

And at the end of the day? Cas wins. Chuck won the battle (at least, I think so), but Cas has won the war, because when Dean is presented with the choice of two opposing viewpoints on himself ("the ultimate killer" vs "the most caring man on earth"), he sides with Cas. He makes the decision that he's not John's good little soldier (he never was). He's not Alastair and Zachariah's Righteous Man. He's not Michael's Sword or Cain's heir or Chuck's ultimate killer. He's Dean Winchester, and Castiel has given him a new, different narrative about himself; he likes this one a whole lot more and he chooses to embrace a new definition of himself with his eyes wide open.

Supernatural is a story about a lot of different things. It's a story about authorship and audiencehood and the conversation between those things. It's about war and it's about family and it's about how both of those things can be vehicles for trauma. And it's very much about how the stories we believe about ourselves can shape our choices and our borders we place (consciously or unconsciously) around who we can be. Cas and Chuck were fighting a subtextual battle throughout the series on those grounds and Cas goddamn won.

#the spn universe and everything #Dean W. #Cas W. #Dean x Cas #15x20 #4x18 #6x20 #5x22 #11x20 #e.a.

[februari-torens]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

#how to (not) tell a queer story #Dean W.

[februari-torens]

i am not immune to feeling sentimental about supernatural

#fankunst

[februari-torens]

Actually I'm about to take this little exchange between Dean and Cas and Sam in the opening of 6.03 seriously, because why not? The conversation in the hotel has been an example used by deancrit casgirls for years to sell a story that Dean is always inconsiderate and demanding things of Cas.

Except Dean hadn't asked Cas for anything in a year as far as we know. He hadn't bothered him once. He hadn't asked him for anything. We know Dean was doing research on how to get Sam out of The Cage over the entire gap year (6.01) but we aren't told that Dean asked Cas to help him. As far as we know, he didn't "bother" Cas—much less demand his aid.

For many, that isn't necessarily the issue though. The issue is the lack of communication in of itself—the lack of "checking in". Setting aside that this isn't Dean's sole responsibility in the friendship and that Cas controls the means of communication between them, when Cas left at the end of 5.22, he spoke as if he was going off on his own solo adventure. Bolstered by a second resurrection, he planned to pursue his faith (and he and Dean clashed briefly over faith). Cas was excited by the idea of becoming "the new sheriff in town" up in heaven, and he didn't give the impression that he planned to maintain a relationship with Dean. He flew off without saying goodbye as if it didn't even occur to him that their connection was important and that parting deserved any sort of recognition, and I think that's how Dean received it—that Cas was at the very least, going away for a while and didn't care to be bothered.

At the same time, Cas didn't give the impression that he thought taking charge in heaven would be difficult. When we next see Cas a year later in 6.03, Cas echoes this sentiment, saying, "I expected more from my brothers". He thought he'd have more help from the other angels in creating (non-apocalyptic-leaning) order. To be honest, I don't think Cas or Dean expected Raphael to be a problem for Cas when they parted ways in 5.22. The Raphael that Dean and Cas had met in 5.03 was tired—barely past neutral in the apocalypse. In fact, Raphael didn't seem to actively take a role in making anything with the apocalypse happen. His only role seemed to be to guard The Prophet Chuck. He seemed like he just wanted to be left alone and outright said he didn't want to be in charge anymore.

"[God] ran off and disappeared. [He] left no instructions and a world to run. [...] We're tired. We just want it to be over. We just want...paradise."

I would guess that Raphael's attitude in 5.03 (and the fact that he never actually came after Cas between 5.03 and 5.22 as he threatened) left both Cas and Dean with the belief that Raphael was weak—beaten down by life, and unlikely to be a problem—that if someone came along and said they wanted the keys, he'd just say, "Whatever" and hand them over and ask to be left alone. Even if he'd fought, Cas hoped to organize the angels on his side first according to his reflection in 6.03, and he believed God would be on his side (even the fear of that possibility was enough to scare Zachariah). God brought Cas back to life twice after he was killed by an archangel—once in 5.01, and again in 5.22. This likely bolstered Cas's confidence as well, made him feel he could gain the favor of devout angels, and made Dean believe Cas would be safe.

What's more, the Cas that Dean is familiar with from season 4 to season 5 isn't shy about asking for help. All Cas did all of season 4 was come to Dean asking or telling or demanding Dean do things for the angels. He was never shy about it. He was nosy and lacked any sense that he might be bothering anybody or even intruding on personal space when he came wanting help with something. He was more likely to show up unannounced and threaten and guilt than he was to think he was being a burden or that he had to handle everything on his own (though he was certainly happy to handle certain things on his own when he thought it would be easiest not to consult with anyone in advance). In 5.03, Cas showed up out of the blue asking Dean to be his meatshield against Raphael. In 5.04, Dean had to explain the concept of sleep when Cas wanted to pick Dean up to help him with a search for The Colt. When Cas needed help, Dean helped—practically and sometimes also emotionally. There were no questions about putting Dean at risk—the mission always came first.

So Dean between 5.22 and 6.03 has no reason to believe Cas would not come to him if he was in need—emotionally or practically. He simply assumes Cas is busy in a healthy way—busy governing with his angel buddies—busy with other relationships and his faith.

When Cas arrives in 6.03, it's because, for the first time in a year, Dean prayed to see if Cas had any ideas on their case. It wasn't a big deal—but seemed like it might be up his alley. It wasn't a demanding request. Hell—maybe Dean sees being on a mission for the first time after a year as a good excuse to get in touch. However, he also finds out just now from Sam that Cas had ghosted Sam when Sam was resurrected and prayed over and over. Over an entire year, Cas never took the time to show. Even if they don't consider each other friends, Dean figures Sam is owed a response at some point over the course of a year after sacrificing his life for everybody.

So when Sam and Cas start squabbling about Cas suddenly appearing (it seems at first) just because Dean prayed instead of Sam, Dean picks Sam's side—and when he says, "When Sam calls, you answer", I don't think he's trying to give orders—I think he's trying to quickly end an unproductive squabble between two more-volatile-than-usual parties who are already prone to butt heads by addressing what he thinks is the root of the issue: Cas simply not grasping the basics of communication and human courtesy.

Dean's had to explain that it isn't okay to fly people places without their permission. He's had to explain that humans need time to eat and sleep and can't assist you at a moments notice at any time day or night. He's had to explain personal space. He's had to explain that watching people sleep is creepy. He's had to explain that showing up in people's rooms or bathrooms out of the blue is startling. This is just one more thing he feels he needs to explain based on his assumptions about Cas ghosting Sam—which are also built upon Cas's own claim—that he ghosted Sam for an entire year simply because he didn't have an answer to his question and for no other reason.

Cas then proceeds to make it clear that he didn't come because Dean called, but because of why Dean called. Cas is interested in the staff of Moses. Cas then proceeds to say "I need your help", and Sam and Dean help him instead of holding a grudge or demanding more explanations. As the case progresses, it becomes more and more clear that Cas isn't going to explain anything and he just keeps darting around and doing things like torturing a kid. So Dean finally demands to know exactly what's going on with Cas. Getting Cas to explain is really difficult—Cas doesn't want to. His responses are short and scattered—he doesn't want to take the time—he's still darting around while he talks.

When they finally get the picture that there's Apocalypse 2.0 brewing, Dean asks outright why Cas didn't ever tell them. The implication here is clear when you realize that up to this point, Dean knows Cas as someone who isn't shy about asking for help when he needs it.

Cas admits,

"I was ashamed. I expected more from my brothers."

He's still using Dean while he talks—literally yanking his wrist over to cut Dean's palm open and use his blood for a spell without asking.

#6x03 #5x22 #Dean x Cas #Cas W.

[februari-torens]

a tutorial

#fankunst #hilarisch

[februari-torens]

Most insane underrated line in Supernatural is "the angels, they don't care. I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just breaks them apart". We are in season 7 episode 21!! Cas and Dean haven't repaired their relationship yet!! Dean is fresh from Cas' betrayal and loss, he has barely started processing the entire thing - and this line has everything, there's the acknowlegment that whatever bad Cas did was from a place of caring, of trying, there's the dose of guilt because Dean blames himself for breaking Cas, there's the other side of the blame coin because as far as Dean is concerned "breaking" Cas is an improvement from the default angel uncaring condition, but is it, isn't it, is it, isn't it? Is giving an uncaring creature the equipment to care an improvement or a downgrade? Is the pain worth it? Is turning Pinocchio into a real boy a gift or a punishment? The very touch of your corrupts. You turned him into the same rotten, twisted thing as you are. Humanity is a virtue. Humanity is a curse. The humanity in you is a value. The humanity in you is a perversion. You are hell incarnate, turning an innocent thing into a monster. But is the monster a monster when the monstrosity you gave him was the ability to care? Where's the line between defilement and mercy? Who traces the line? Depravity and goodness are sides of the same coin called humanity and you're so full of humanity it's bursting at your seams. You're a plague inflicting the ones around you with your sickness but the sickness is being a person. You installed the personhood software into the robot and it's not perfect anymore. Is it broken? Or is it really perfect now? Who decides that? Do you get to decide? Is the one you affected able to decide?

*grabs Ben Edlund by the shoulders and shakes him, all while screeching*

#7x21 #Dean x Cas

[februari-torens]

(it's going to be quite a convoluted post but bear with me)this insanely good post by @postmodernmulticoloredcloak (about this line from 7x21 "the angels, they don't care. I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just breaks them apart") made me think of another line, always by Edlund, from TMWWBK s6e20, ie:

Dean: It's not too late. Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!

Cas: Dean, it's not broken!

I remember that when I first watched the episode I thought "hold on, what is going on here?" 'cause it was clear from Cas' reply that the lines are not just about the Purgatory situation but also about Dean and Cas' situationship. Now, Dean's words "fix" and "equipment", reminded me how he uses fixing Baby in s7e1 as a necessity ofc, but as a coping mechanism, too after the whole mess with Sam's wall and Cas getting pregnant with Leviathans (I don't remember the lines but I'm pretty sure that he even admits, in different words, that fixing the car is a way to for him to stay focused, to regain control).

And now that the image of fixing a car has popped into my mind, I recalled the lines from s7e17 when Dean tells Emmanuel that he can't "shake off" what Cas did and Cas/Emmanuel says: "You're not a machine, Dean. You're human".

So what am I trying to say? Well, I think what I want to say is that although Dean is humanity, he's the definition of caring etc, at the same time, he doesn't have the tools to navigate his relationship with Cas. He is willing to but he doesn't know how to and this drives him a bit crazy. So, in a way, Dean doesn't have the "equipment" to care as well, not generally speaking, but specifically when it comes to Cas (Dean has said so in s7e17, the one thing he can't shake off is this thing with Cas). Every time he tries they break apart anyway.

From here I went a bit insane 'cause I started thinking: so what happens when you fall in love, deeply, nonsensically and for the first time but you don't know what to do? Like you don't even recognize how big this whole mess is simply because you don't have the tools to deal with these freakingly huge totally-out-of-control emotions? And then the person you're falling for becomes God or whatever and then he dies? What's one supposed to do? I guess fixing a car is as good as a coping mechanism as any So Dean couldn't fix things with Cas but he sure as hell can fix his baby. Now if you excuse me, I'll be over there crying.

#Dean x Cas #6x20 #13x22 #8x17 #8x21 #12x10 #7x17 #e.a.

[februari-torens]

I've been thinking about your meta about 5.16 as a Zach manipulation. It reminded me of the theory that the Ash scene is Dean's 3rd heaven room. It has Dean's coolest friends, Ash and Pam, and they reassure him they don't blame him for their deaths. Ash persuades him you can hack heaven and have fun with it; Pamela tells him heaven is great. All this propaganda for a special Dean heaven as a final reward for being Michael's meatsuit, like the angels later promise Adam will see his mum?

Pam does hit Dean and say "That's for getting me killed" in that scene. Ash is cool with being dead though, and Pam ends up saying heaven is a better place. I actually think Pam throwing in a dose of guilt then cooling it with the balm of heaven being a real paradise is perhaps more indicative of potential manipulations in play than her telling Dean she didn't blame him would be, because two primary component of Dean's motivations when running off to say "Yes" end up being 1) Minimize the destruction of the earth (i.e., the harm to others) 2) The weight of guilt over what happens if he's wrong—if they can't find a way to win, and then when EVERYONE dies (like what Zachariah showed Dean in "The End") Dean thinks it'll all be on him—it'll all be his fault that the world burned.

Bringing Pam back in 5.16 is interesting, because Dean's lowest point in season 4 was arguably "On The Head of A Pin", and that episode opened with Dean talking about Pam's death the previous episode.

SAM What's your problem? DEAN Pamela didn't want anything to do with this and we dragged her back into it, Sam. SAM She knew what was at stake. DEAN Oh yeah. Saving the world. And we're doing such a damn good job of it. SAM Dean— DEAN I'm tired of burying friends, Sam. SAM Look, we catch a fresh trail— DEAN And we follow it, I know. Like I said, I'm just—I'm just getting tired.

The episode closed with Dean saying that if HE was supposed to stop the apocalypse, "You guys are screwed". He followed that up by saying these burdens were too big, overwhelmed to the point of tears.

So bringing Pam back recalls a lot of negative emotions and a sense of deep hopelessness. Pam basically functions as a voice to remind Dean that he isn't qualified to stop the apocalypse. It's too big and he isn't strong enough. He'll fail (he's already been blamed for failing to stop Sam at the end of season 4 repeatedly). People he cares about will get hurt/die (and already have, like Pam and Ellen and Jo). Pam is also a reminder of risk. No matter what plan Team Free Will might come up with, it'll be risky—and Pam was the collateral damage of one of Dean's risky plans. Contrast this with how Pam represents heaven as a peaceful certainty. "No matter what happens, everyone will come here and it'll all be okay". So Dean might as well stop fighting, stop torturing himself, stop hand-wringing, and give in.

I also think that's a great point about Ash making heaven feel more "real" by giving the possibility of hacking it. All of this feels like a direct attempt to refute 4.22 when Dean fought with Cas in the beautiful room and said life on earth was better than heaven because it's real—that he'd take the pain and the guilt because it was a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. Pam says it doesn't matter if it's fake, and Ash represents being able to be in heaven without being a Stepford bitch. And the thing is, I wouldn't be surprised if Zachariah overheard that fight between Dean and Cas in 4.22 (especially based on how immediately he appeared to try and stop Cas when Cas returned to help Dean escape). If Zachariah overheard that, he'd know it was a defining aspect of not just Dean's but Cas's reasons for rebellion as well. Convincing Dean to abandon this perception of heaven as a false paradise would not only weaken Dean's resistance, but also weaken his bond with Cas as well by making Cas feel betrayed (which is exactly what ends up happening). 5.16 attempted to weaken Dean's resistance, but 5.13 through 5.16 were also all about weakening the unity of the family as a whole, starting all the way back with John and Mary, working through Sam and Dean's relationship with Bobby, Sam and Dean's relationship with one another, and then Dean and Cas's relationship.

What Pam says reeks of heavenly manipulations already (how does Pam know all of these details about Dean being a vessel anyway?) but Zachariah's influence also seems likely based on how Sam and Dean get inside the Roadhouse, and then what happens the moment they leave. What gets them into the Roadhouse is Zachariah "looking" for them in the woods. It's obvious he knows exactly where they are, but he appears to toy with them for no reason. He keeps popping up in front of them everywhere they run, until they bump right into Ash who leads them away. Sam and Dean are meant to believe they'd escaped Zachariah's awareness of their location by following Ash, but we immediately know that can't be true, because the moment they leave the Roadhouse they immediately fall right into Zachariah's most overt trap inside the old Winchester family house, and inside that trap, Zachariah confronts Dean with a completely fake Mary—so why wouldn't he have lead them to a completely fake Pam and Ash?

#5x16 #4x16 #Dean W. #Cas W.

[februari-torens]

Regarding Dean/ Regarding Alice

I just had to write a little bit of meta about all the Alice in Wonderland  (1865) references in Meredith Glynn’s rather good Regarding Dean 12x11.

Dean is well and truly “down the rabbit hole” …

Indeed, Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland is so trippy, with its hookah smoking caterpillar and grinning Cheshire cat and reality-bending potions, that “Alice” became a slang word for LSD in the 1960s. Arthur Penn’s lovely 1969 hippy movie Alice’s Restaurant is named after Arlo Guthrie’s song of that name, which is about Woodstock - and both use “Alice” in that sense.

That’s why the colour palette in this episode is so extra - it has a deliberate psychedelic edge to it.

Now, Alice’s encounter with the White Rabbit takes her on a mind-bending journey

in which, she discovers a cake and a bottle with notes on them, reading “eat me” and “drink me”, which either shrink her or make her grow giant-esque. 

Sam’s post-it notes to memory-loss Dean are a reference to this in Alice:

and…

But, and this is where it gets sad and a bit traumatic (so I’ll put this bit under the cut with a CW: abuse)

Keep reading

#12x11 #Dean W.